DIY PVR 3: Hardware

Since reading this Coding Horror article on Jeff Atwood's new dvr setup, I've been contemplating switching from TiVo to Windows Media Center.  One of the good things about Media Center is that you can pick your own hardware, but that means that you have to pick your own hardware. Someone needs to sell a prebuilt, preconfigured HTPC to compete with TiVo.

My requirements were simple- it has to incorporate a cablecard (with switched video)-compatible tuner.  It has to look nice- like it belongs with TV equipment (tower cases are out).  I'm looking for as inexpensive as possible, without being cheap.

DIY PVR 2: The Promise

After being a loyal TiVo user for 10 years- not to mention converting my wife, parents, and sisters- I'm not going to switch to anything unless it's significantly better.  For reference, here is an in-depth comparison of the TiVo Premiere UI and Windows Media Center 7.  It looks like MC7 beats TiVo in all but a couple areas that I care about (most significantly, the ability to undelete shows).  Here are some of the features I'm expecting to get out of this effort.

DIY PVR 1: TiVo Grievances

I've been an avid TiVo supporter since I bought a Series 1 back in 2001.  The leap beyond VCR was incredible- seeing episode titles and descriptions, season passes, suggested recordings, not running out of tape, and not being shackled to live tv.  You could watch one show while recording another!  I even upgraded the hard drive (20 hours is just not enough) and added a network card (to archive/share shows).

Over the years we've upgraded to a Series 2 and a TiVo HD.  The HD was another leap forward- both by recording HD and adding a separate tuner: now we can record two shows at once while watching a third and downloading a fourth!  They even added YouTube, Amazon Instant video, and Netflix (others, too, but these are the ones we use).

I still love TiVo, but it's showing its age.  Sure, you can download videos off it (using TiVo ToGo) to put onto your iPad, but putting video onto it is a real bear- StreamBaby and pyTivo make it possible, but it's not a pleasant experience.  It has Netflix, but the interface only allows you to watch your instant queue- no searching, no related movies, etc.  The YouTube interface works well enough but is painfully slow to search; even just navigating the menus (favorites, for instance) is slow.